When the pressure in an oil and gas reservoir has fallen to the point where a well will not produce oil and gas to the earth's surface by natural energy, some method of artificial lift is then employed. One of the most conventional types of artificial lift is sucker rod pumping wherein a pump at the bottom of the wellbore is reciprocated by a string of sucker rods that extend to the earth's surface and are there connected to a well pump unit. The pump unit at the earth's surface reciprocates the sucker rod string and the downhole pump thereby forcing fluid in the wellbore to the earth's surface for recovery.
A variety of sucker rod pump units are employed in practice, several of which are disclosed hereinafter in detail. However, all such units require a base which rests on the surface of the earth and upon which base is mounted the pump unit. This pump unit base is universally one or more concrete pads which have fixed therein and extending thereabove a plurality of iron bolts by which the pump unit is secured to the concrete base.
The problem with concrete bases becomes apparent when the pump unit is moved to another site. The base is extremely difficult to move. Even if the base is moved, the bottom configuration of the base is peculiar to the curvature of the earth where it was initially located and does not fit well with the curvature of the earth at the new location. Further, when a base is no longer useful, the concrete and iron contained therein is waste material which cannot be readily reused and must be disposed of in an acceptable manner at some cost.
This invention provides a pump unit base which is readily movable to any location and just as readily adjustable to the size and shape of any sucker rod well pumping unit in use today. When the base is of no further use, the material from which it is constructed can be reused and is not waste material in the manner of a concrete base.